That it is consistent does not mean it is equivalent. Humans are pretty poor at avoiding conflating their terms and categories into messes of confusion. This fiction that gold (or any other thing) possesses intrinsic value is one of best examples of such confusion in economics. Things have value because people decide they do—and as soon as they decide otherwise, that value steadily declines to zero, despite how many people ardently believed that value was intrinsic to the thing itself, as if it was one of the physical properties of the thing, an indivisible part of the object. This is nonsense.

Moreover, there is no logical fallacy here on my part. I was not refuting an argument that was not made—I was directly disputing the coherence of an economic adage the average person has been taught is actually rational and sensible when it was brought into the discussion.

Value is never intrinsic, but always created by economic actors—the logical fallacy is arguing otherwise.

Gold, like silver, various other precious metals, and a number of other things—like land, for example—have long histories of value. The historic value of gold among human societies can not be disputed. But that long history has not infused value as a physical property upon gold—or any other thing—itself.

My original statement was neither outrageous nor illogical. Bitcoin is in this case a rather perfect example that highlights exactly what I’m pointing out—the value of bitcoin is in no way intrinsic to bitcoin itself. Bitcoin possesses a number of properties which, analogous to similar properties in a physical object like gold, are found to have both use and exchange value among economic agents. But that value is not actually a core property of bitcoin anymore than value is a core property of gold. Agents identify properties in bitcoin and assign them value. This is always where value comes from—use values from the things one can do with the commodity, and exchange values from the things one can buy with the commodity.